DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can carry it to you. Now, Delta County has seen its share of hardworkin' souls pass through, but every now and then the record stops and says, this one. This one mattered.
Leroy Nelson DeWitt was born on March 20th, 1840, and the story starts, as so many Texas stories do, somewhere else entirely. Virginia, to be precise. He was just a boy, maybe leaning out a wagon window, when his family made the move to this part of Texas in 1854.
Whatever he saw when he arrived, he must have liked it, because he never really left. By 1861, he was a married man, having taken Miss Mary Collier as his wife. Nine children would follow from that union.
Nine. You stop and let that settle a moment. Then came 1862, and the war, and Leroy Nelson DeWitt joined the Confederacy to serve on the frontier.
He stayed until the end of the war. Not a moment cut short, not a door slipped out of early. Until the end.
And then he came home, and he built something. A merchant's life. A farmer's life.
A recognized leader in civic and church affairs, the marker says, and in the development of the area around him. He had arrived as a child with his parents. He would spend the rest of his days shaping the place that took him in.
Leroy Nelson DeWitt died on May 23rd, 1918. The marker doesn't dress that up, and neither will I. Some lives earn a simple, honest accounting.
This one did.
What the marker says
(b. Mar. 20, 1840 - d. May 23. 1918) Prosperous merchant and farmer. Native of Virginia; moved here with parents, 1854. Married Miss Mary Collier, 1861; they had 9 children. In 1862, joined Confederacy to serve on frontier until end of war. Became recognized leader in civic and church affairs, area development.